Judge Declares Mistrial in Hip-Hop Manager’s Trial

A judge in the federal trial of a hip-hop manager accused of ordering the murder of one of 50 Cent’s associates declared a mistrial on Friday, the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan said.

The judge, Colleen McMahon, made the ruling after the jury sent several notes saying it was hopelessly deadlocked on four murder-for-hire counts in a federal indictment against the manager, James Rosemond, and his co-defendant, Rodney Johnson.

It remained unclear Friday night if the United States attorney in Manhattan, Preet Bharara, would pursue a second trial. Mr. Rosemond was sentenced to life in prison after a conviction in Federal District Court in Brooklyn for running a cocaine ring. “We are currently considering our options with respect to a retrial,” Mr. Bharara said in a statement.

Mr. Rosemond, once a heavyweight in the hip-hop world who managed acts like the Game and Gucci Mane, was accused of orchestrating the shooting of Lowell Fletcher, an associate of the G-Unit rappers Tony Yayo and 50 Cent.

Mr. Fletcher was a reputed Bloods gang member from the Rockaways who went by the street name Lodi Mack. He was shot and killed on Jerome Avenue in the Bronx on Sept. 27, 2009. Two weeks earlier, he had been released from prison after serving a sentence for assaulting Mr. Rosemond’s 14-year-old son.

Prosecutors portrayed the murder as the final act in a “street war” that had started years earlier as a feud between the Game and 50 Cent that escalated in March 2007, when Mr. Rosemond’s son was attacked.

Four members of Mr. Rosemond’s organization, testifying in return for reduced sentences, said Mr. Rosemond had hired two low-level drug dealers, Brian McCleod and Derrick Grant, to carry out the ambush, paying them with a kilo of cocaine. Mr. Johnson and two other associates of Mr. Rosemond’s also participated, monitoring the attack from nearby cars, Mr. McCleod testified.

But Mr. Rosemond’s lawyer, J. Bruce Maffeo, attacked the credibility of the prosecution’s witnesses, pointing out that they were career criminals who had lied repeatedly to the authorities. He also said Mr. Rosemond was in Miami the day of the killing.

“At least one juror was not willing to credit the cooperating witnesses,” Mr. Maffeo said. “What’s clear is the prosecutors were unable to put the ball over the goal line.”

Earlier this week, the jury convicted Mr. Johnson of narcotics distribution, drug possession and gun possession in connection with his role in Mr. Rosemond’s cocaine enterprise.

In June 2012, Mr. Rosemond was found guilty of using his music business as a front for a drug operation that sold more than $11 million worth of cocaine a year, often moving it across the country in cases designed for music equipment. He has appealed the verdict.